


Loyalties

by RavenXavier



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Biting, F/F, Isolation, Minor Violence, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 14:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenXavier/pseuds/RavenXavier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Ty Lee continues. “You know how people can be; being imprisoned because I acted against you wasn’t quite enough to gain their trust completely. It took a few more months, until I could convince them that I just wanted to see you, nothing more. Of course, there was also the fact that I didn’t know -well, I didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”</p><p>“I don’t,” Azula states.</p><p>Her voice is rough; Ty Lee startles. </p><p>“I’ll go if you want me to,” she tells her, but she sounds sad. </p><p>
  <em> (Ty Lee comes to visit Azula in prison, when it's all over. Several times.) </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loyalties

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest with you, guys: I never read a single ATLA stories yet, I've just finished watching ATLA today, and it's been a pretty terrible day, and I'm not sure it's going to get better soon. Buut I really wanted to have more Azula and Ty Lee, possibly make sure they kissed and got some resolution, and since the finale didn't really give me that, well, i went and write it (..somehow..) instead. 
> 
> This might be OOC and terrible and full of mistakes and if it is, I'm sorry. It just turned out bit too long for Tumblr, so it's here instead.
> 
> Hope some of you enjoy i guess?

When Azula screams, nothing comes out except a shrieking ugly sound; they tell her to stop, so she screams some more, she screams until her throat is burning and it’s almost like having the fire back, except there’s still nothing but darkness and cold, and the sound starts to grate her own ears. She closes her dry mouth, brings her knees to her chest, and cries.

There’s only little light coming from the high window above her prison cell. It takes some time to get use to it, but when she does, she hates it; the ground is dirty, she’s dirty, there is filth everywhere and rage and disgust make her shake all over. She jumps on her feet, and tries to punch the wall, because she can’t burn it anymore. The manacles around her wrists make her clumsy. Even that, she thinks, even that - her agility, her deadly precision -

For a few days, she hates so strongly that there are no thought for anything else. When she calms down, she requests water, imperiously, and there’s no satisfaction when it’s given to her. She rinses her face, comb her hair with her wet fingers, tries to wash the filthiness away, and spends the rest of her days thinking of ways to escape. They took away everything that was hers, everything that made her _herself_ and there were still scared of her in the end. Everywhere she looks there’s nothing except that reminder - they were still so scared they made sure to make her cell inescapable.

She ought to be satisfied; there’s bitter laughter caught between her lips. She stops washing again. The water never really erased all the filthiness and anyway, it reminds her of the girl. She would kill the girl, if she could; or worst. There’s honor in dying; she would take the water away from her instead, and then kills all of her friends.

She doesn’t say a word when Zuko comes; she thinks he speaks of Mother. She doesn’t listen. She still has the power to irritate him, which spurts a spark in her that disappears as soon as he’s gone again. She doesn’t say a word either when Uncle Iroh offers her a cup of tea. Iroh doesn’t talk, which is an improvement from her brother. But he starts coming regularly, and that’s terrible, because caught in the dark of her cell, Azula starts to wait for him to come back, again and again.

It is somewhat of a shock when, one day, the door opens and it’s not Uncle Iroh who’s there, smiling calmly but his eyes sad and wary, a trail in his hands, but Ty Lee.

Azula stares. Ty Lee looks the same as she always did; pretty and innocent; she’s cut her hair, and she’s wearing a dress, which Azula thinks is green. It’s wrong on her. So is Ty Lee’s widened, sad eyes, and the hesitant way she walks up to the cell.

“They say you don’t talk anymore,” are her first words.

Azula meets her eyes; something is rising up in her chest, fast and strong; anger - familiar and yet almost forgotten, trapped in the back of Azula’s mind the same way she’s been trapped in that prison. But Ty Lee is here, and suddenly Azula remembers what it’s like, to be so furious that you feel like you could crush the world into your fingers and it still wouldn’t calm you.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Ty Lee continues. “You know how people can be; being imprisoned because I acted against you wasn’t quite enough to gain their trust completely. It took a few more months, until I could convince them that I just wanted to see you, nothing more. Of course, there was also the fact that I didn’t know -well, I didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”

“I don’t,” Azula states.

Her voice is rough; Ty Lee startles.

“I’ll go if you want me to,” she tells her, but she sounds sad. Azula wished she was free so she could show her, exactly, how much she wants her gone.

“Then go,” she spits instead; “Go away, you traitor. You helped putting me in this cage, I would not let you the satisfaction to come gloat now.”

“I didn’t come here to gloat,” Ty Lee says. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I just - I wanted to explain, you see; you never let me explained why I did it.”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Azula grows except - except... Ty Lee nods.

“Mai’s reason was her love for Zuko. My reason was my love for Mai.” she said.

“Traitor,” Azula repeats, and she refuses to acknowledge that there might be hurt somewhere in her voice, because she’s always known that she lacked something, that she didn’t have Ty Lee’s affection the way Mai did, or anyone else, but hearing it - hearing it makes her yearn for lightening between her fingers.

“No Azula,” Ty Lee murmurs. She curls one hand around one of the prison cell’s bar. “That’s the one thing I never was. You were going to attack Mai, and I love her. But If Mai had attacked you, it’s her I would have gone against, because I love _you,_ too.”

Azula is shaking, she realizes dimly. She turns her head away abruptly, blinking several times, and looks hard at the chains around her wrists.

“Go away,” she orders Ty Lee. “Go AWAY.”

“Alright, princess Azula,” Ty Lee says softly.

Azula doesn’t start to cry until she’s heard the door close behind Ty Lee’s light feet.

*

Azula takes the cup of tea that Uncle Iroh offers her the next time he comes. He looks surprised but satisfied, and tries to talk; when Azula just drinks, stiff and silent, he sighs.

“I heard you talked to your friend, the last time she came,” he says. Azula shows her teeth, and Iroh frowns. “Now, now, Azula, you are not a savage, and we both know that. I’ve endured prison, niece. I know it can get to you. But closing yourself to the world, to those who wish to help you, is not the solution. You’ve got to accept that you didn’t win the war, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still - ”

“I am not. my. brother,” Azula hisses. “You will not see me bend like he did for you. I do not want your help; I wished I had killed you when I had the chance.”

Uncle Iroh blinks.

“Well, that’s speaking at least,” he says thoughtfully, and Azula throws her cup of tea at his face. The cup shatters against the cell bars, and the tea splashes on her uncle’s robes.

“There is so much hatred in you, Azula,” he tells her while calmly getting up.

“There is nothing in me,” Azula sneers, and she means it, but Iroh just shakes his head.

“You should look deeper within yourself,” he says. “Think about who you are, and what you could be.”

“I know who I _should_ be,” Azula retorts.

“We all think we do, and then we’re proved wrong,” Iroh says. “I’ll see you next week, Azula.”

The door opens again before that; It takes Azula an entire minute to realize that the Kyoshi warrior who has just entered is Ty Lee. She can’t help it; she snorts. Ty Lee comes closer; the make-up makes her look ridiculous.

“They’re not so bad,” she tells Azula immediately, as if she could hear her thoughts. “I like them. They’ve been very nice to me, and they’re good pupils. They respect me now, which is very amusing.”

“I respected you,” Azula says coldly.

“You did,” Ty Lee nods immediately, sincerely. “It was never exactly fun, though, was it? More like scary; everything about you is scary.”

The thing is, Ty Lee doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing, exactly. She just states it like a fact, something that they’re both aware of. Azula finds herself unsettled. Should she be angry? Proud? _Amused_?

“What did you tell them, to make them accept you?” she asks instead. “Did you say you were forced to obey me? That you’d joined me only because I was _scary_?”

“You did force me to join you,” Ty Lee points out. “I was scared of you, Azula, and what you would do to my circus if I didn’t say yes. You knew that, and you _used_ that.”

“I nee - I _wanted_ you there, with me,” Azula says, the words painful and too honest on her tongue.

“I know,” Ty Lee nods; there’s something in her smile - almost happy. “I knew you weren’t going to let me go so easily the moment you said you wanted to watch me perform. You never did learn how to ask nicely, princess Azula.”

“I tried,” Azula reminds her, gritting her teeth. “And you said no.”

“And I gave you my reasons,” Ty lee retorts, a hint of steel in her voice. “I loved it there.”

“Then why didn’t you go back?” Azula asks her. “Why this instead?” she waves at Ty Lee’s attire.

“We do what we must, after a war,” Ty Lee answers, but it’s quiet; so quiet.

“So you’ve decided that you had had enough visibility,” Azula taunts her, purposefully cruel. She wants her to hurt, and Ty Lee just let her guard down enough. “A few years away from sisters nobody can differentiate from you, and then you go back to it; invisibility; you blend in with make-up and stupid robes, and you wait for people not to see you anymore? You’re even giving them everything that made you _special_. One day, you’ll be unrecognizable again. It’s pathetic, Ty Lee.”

“Azula,” says Ty Lee affectionately, “I know I will always be able to count on you to keep seeing me for who I am. You always did, and I don’t believe make-up will change it.”

Azula stares at her, taken aback. “You’re a fool,” she says, because nothing else is coming to her.

“Indeed,” Ty Lee says, and then she - absurdly, stupidly - grins and blows her a kiss, before rising up again. “Good bye, Azula.”

*

Time passes; Azula isn’t able to say how much - she stopped keeping track at the very beginning of her imprisonment, and it’s hard to start again now. She could ask, of course, but the very thought make her recoil with disgust. The only people who’d be willing to answer are her uncle, whom she still regularly threaten of atrocious, painful death, and Ty Lee, who’s made a habit of visiting too, and who keeps being oddly cheery and affectionate, the way she’s always been, especially when Azula tries her best to be cruel.

It’s less and less, those days. Azula always had a particular fondness for Ty Lee; she liked her, and respected her - as she did Mai. But while it’s easy to keep being angry at Mai, who’s chosen her _brother_ of all people over her, it’s harder to remember her disappointment and rage for Ty Lee, who was always sweet when Azula was horrible, always gently warm when Azula just used warmth as a weapon, and who, even know, despite everything, despite her new friends, still comes to see her, and manages to slip so easily through the cracks of Azula’s mental walls.

Perhaps it’s the reason why Azula can barely hold off a smirk when Ty Lee arrives, one day, and charms the two guards at Azula’s door into opening the cell to let her in. Azula’s heart speeds up. For one, stunning, exhilarating moment, she tastes freedom. But then the cell closes off again behind Ty Lee, and the guard gruffs: _“Just tell us when you want to be let out”_ and gave a dark look at Azula before leaving them alone.

“Ah,” says Ty Lee cheerfully. “Now then. I’m sorry to say this, Azula, but you look terrible and that won’t do. I brought all kind of things with me to help!”

She takes out a pair of scissors, a small bottle of hair products, a comb, and a bag of water out of her robes. Azula looks at all the items, vaguely amused.

“How ever did you hide that?”

“A girl has her ways,” Ty Lee says brightly, and her smile is just the right side of wicked and this - _this_ is what Azula sees in Ty Lee, even when she’s got everybody else fooled. Yes, she’s stupidly nice, and cheerful, and optimistic; but she also knows how to use that to her advantage, and she feels no guilt doing so. She’s clever and sly and she knows how to hurt people and still get away with it with a sweet laugh, and that’s one reason she fitted so well immediately with Azula and Mai, so long ago.

“I wonder,” says Azula, looking at her more sharply now, “Why you insist on visiting a disgraced princess and worst, playing friends with her. It mustn’t please your new... companions.”

“They trust me,” Ty Lee grins happily, sitting down next to Azula. “May I?”

Azula shrugs, and Ty Lee carefully takes a lock of her hair between her fingers.

“It makes no sense, though,” Azula keeps going after a moment. “It’s completely illogical.”

“Trust is illogical, Azula,” Ty Lee says wisely and then she sighs. “God, you’ve got such lovely hair; letting them come to this is a crime in itself.”

“Still,” Azula insists, ignoring her last comment. “You have an opportunity, outside. And yet you come -”

“I come,” Ty Lee cuts her off. In the old days, Azula thinks she would have been annoyed at the affront, although she’d have gotten over it quickly if Ty Lee had smiled at her enough, which she always did. “You know why I come, Azula. I suspect that everybody knows; mostly they pity me. They think you heartless, you see.”

“They’re right,” Azula says hotly. “I am not weak.”

“Azula,” Ty Lee laughs - she’s so close, now, still playing with Azula’s hair. “You see me, and I see you. You’re many things, but certainly not heartless _or_ weak.”

“I was weak,” Azula says, turning to look at her. “I trusted you, and you betrayed me.”

“I saved Mai from your anger,” Ty Lee says earnestly. “You’re a scary girl, Azula, always has been, and I didn’t want Mai to be hurt because she’d chosen to be loyal to Zuko.”

“You chose him too!” Azula spits bitterly. “Don’t pretend any different, you chose my brother, and the Avatar, and those Kyoshi Warriors over _me_.”

Ty Lee looks down for a moment; then she says, more quietly:

“When I got out of prison - the prison you put me in, without letting me say even a word, may I add - I had to think about all of this. There comes a time when a girl has to chose where her loyalty lie for good. Mai picked Zuko; love does that to someone. But what of me? In the end, I was never like you and Mai - bit too gentle, bit too naïve perhaps. But I loved you, both of you, enough to follow you despite how scary I think you are sometimes, despite how horrible both of you can be. Even out of prison, I was still upset it had come to this; I liked the three of us together; but of course you and Mai had to argue over Zuko. Of course it had to have such drastic consequences. I didn’t want to come to this, having to chose you, or Mai. So I didn’t.”

“You’re saying a lot of things, and none of them make sense,” Azula snaps impatiently.

“I didn’t chose,” Ty Lee repeats. She leans slightly towards Azula, her fingers brushing against her cheek. “You know where my loyalty lies, Azula. It’s exactly where it’s always been, and that won’t change.”

When she kisses her, it’s sudden and brief, just a peck on the lips that startles Azula hard, and she jerks away from the touch. Ty Lee doesn’t seem upset at all; she just smiles and blinks - Pretty and Innocent, as always.

“You’re mine,” Azula says, satisfaction burning hot in her stomach, as well as something else, maybe, that she won’t name. “Mine.”

When she launches unto Ty Lee, Ty Lee welcomes her with open arms. Azula clings to Ty Lee’s dress, and kisses her hard, determined and pleased, tasting sweetness on her lips, and delighting in biting them until there’s blood instead. Ty Lee hums against her, throwing her arms around Azula’s neck, and she manages to pour more softness into this, winning the battle thanks to experience, when Azula only has fervour and want on her side.

“You could free me,” Azula tells her after a few minutes. “You could help me escape.”

“Probably,” Ty Lee admits. “But being in love with you hasn’t made me foolish enough to try, Azula, and you know it,” she adds, licking the pearl of blood from her lower lip.

“We could rule the world, you and I,” Azula tells her, gripping her shoulders.

“You’re still so scary,” Ty Lee murmurs, her thumb caressing the back of Azula’s neck and making her shiver. “Even now, there’s something so scary in your eyes, all the time.”

She doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing at all. Azula smirks. Her brain in burning with sudden ideas and strategies and a million plans, and she feels _alive_ for the first time since the Avatar and her brother took everything. Perhaps it’s because they forgot a thing - one single, precious thing. Nobody sees Ty Lee the way Azula always has. And that will be their doom, Azula thinks darkly.

But for now -

“I thought you were going to take care of my hair,” she says imperiously. “It’s not going to cut itself with the power of your stare; it’s not even a glare.”

Ty Lee blinks. And then she laughs, bright and happy;

“Of course, Princess Azula,” she says affectionately, and she takes the pair of scissors, stroking Azula’s curls and saying nothing when Azula’s smile turns into something almost soft.

 


End file.
